One of England’s most important shipwrecks, the London, has sat on the seabed off Southend for 350 years since mysteriously exploding on a journey between Chatham and Gravesend during the mid-17th century

Conditions for diving the London wreck as seen on a sunny day by the diving team

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Steve Ellis

Tagging a cannon on the ship as part of survey work

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Steve Ellis

A pewter pot recovered from the submerged scene

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Steve Ellis

A salt glazed pot

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Steve Ellis

A signet pipe tamper ring

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Steve Ellis

Cotswold Archaeology are overseeing the excavation alongside English Heritage

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Steve Ellis

A Latchet shoe

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Steve Ellis

Three of the divers hoping to discover more from the mid-17th century shipwreck

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Steve Ellis

Drawing an initial site plan in the underwater blackness

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Steve Ellis

The London was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act in October 2008

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Steve Ellis

Training for the dive in poor-visbility conditions

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Steve Ellis

Recording an artefact before its recovery in good-visibility conditions

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Steve Ellis

When it was built, at some point between 1642 and 1660, it became one of three completed wooden Second Rate ‘Large Ships’ – it remains the only example to have survived. Part of an English Squadron sent to collect Charles II in 1658, the potentially remarkable artefacts from its two sections will be recovered by underwater divers in a two-year, English Heritage-commissioned salvage operation.

“They will provide a great insight into the English Navy during an unsettled time when Britain was emerging as a global power.

“While the hull of the ship will remain on the seabed for the foreseeable future, the recovery and display of vulnerable artefacts will aid our understanding of life on board ship in the late 17th century and enable us to remove the wreck from our Heritage at Risk Register.”

Three trenches in the bow of the wreck will give excavators access to the hold, main gun deck, carpenter and boatswains store rooms and the anchor cable-carrying orlop deck.

Test dives have found leather shoes, buckets, pots, cooking utensils, fixtures and fittings, ordnance and navigational dividers on a vessel once charged with helping restore Charles to the throne following the anarchic aftermath of Oliver Cromwell’s death.

“This hidden wreck lies just off Southend Pier, which is visited by thousands each year,” says Clare Hunt, the Curatorial Manager at the local council’s Museums Service.

“Yet the wreck remains largely unknown. It’s part of our local as well as national history and we’re inviting local people to get involved in recording these ship finds.”

The ship was rediscovered during port development works in 2005, and placed on the at Risk register as shifting sediment levels damaged its fragile remains.

Steven Ellis, an experienced Thames Estuary diver who has been granted licence to dive the wreck, said the team expected “exciting” finds despite conditions which are “difficult with limited visibility”.

The Museums Service will curate the recovered finds and create a permanent display at its headquarters.

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